Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate generally to information handling systems. More specifically, embodiments of the invention provide a method and system for conducting electronic commerce within a social media environment.
Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Such information handling systems have been instrumental in the widespread adoption of electronic commerce (ecommerce), which enables organizations to communicate, advertise, market and sell their products and services over computer networks such as the Internet. These same information handling systems have been just as instrumental in the rapid adoption of social media into the mainstream of everyday life. Social media commonly refers to the use of web-based technologies for the creation and exchange of user-generated content for social interaction. As such, it currently accounts for approximately 22% of all time spent on the Internet.
More recently, social commerce has emerged. A subset of ecommerce, social commerce uses social interactions and user contributions to assist in the online buying and selling of products and services. More succinctly, social commerce can be thought of as the use of social media in the context of ecommerce. Examples of social commerce include customer ratings and reviews, user recommendations and referrals, private and public forums and communities, and social advertising.
Another form of social commerce is user-generated advertorial content, which provides on-line shoppers with advice from trusted individuals and assists them in finding recommended goods and services. Once restricted to ecommerce sites, such content is now beginning to be available within social media environments. However, purchasing recommended goods and services typically requires leaving the social media environment and accessing the vendor's ecommerce site. Once accessed, the user is often overwhelmed with too many choices, which can lead to confusion, indecision, and abandoned shopping carts. In view of the foregoing, there is a need to seamlessly extend social commerce to provide complete ecommerce functionality from within a social media environment.